As Seen On TV
Inventions are fun. Ask me sometime to tell you my Swiffer story (I should be a thousandaire, or even a hundredaire). But unlike late night infomercials, the invention of what we call Church, or more correctly Sunday Service, is a bit of a mystery to me (ok, to be fair the bacon tree that the little girl invented gets me too, but still).
I say invention, because the formula we currently use is completely foreign to the Bible. Fully 99.9% of non-Catholic or orthdox churches in North America, and probably only slightly lower in the world, follow roughly this pattern:
1. Greeting
2. Sing 3-6 songs
2a. Some sort of congregational exchange of hellos, insulting called Fellowship
3. Communion and/or Offering (generally with meditation, then promptly rushed through and done individually)
4. Sermon (this takes up the most time)
5. Invitation
6. Closer - prayer and/or song
Now, of course there are variations on this here and there, but I feel sure that the VAST majority of churches you could walk into on a Sunday (or Saturday) morning would roughly meet this pattern. Where does this come from? And why do "para-church organizations" like campus ministries feel the need to replicate this model?
In the beginning was communion, and it was good. Well, to be fair, in the beginning were Jews, and they were good. Good Christians, at first, were good Jews (or at least after they believed in Christ they tried to live up to their heritage). On the Sabbath, they would go to synagogues to worship God which included giving, hearing the Word (and I do mean the Word, NOT a preacher's message but the actual text), singing, lighting incense and prayer, and a probably a few things I don't have listed. The next day, the Christians only would get together in homes, to read from the letters of the apostles, to fellowship (that is, to actually become involved in each others lives) and the breaking of bread, or communion. In fact, communion was really the reason that they came together, and gave occasion for the rest. Paul specifically says that he stayed late in a town to share communion with them, not to hear a preacher or sing or any other odd thing. Yet the communion we take is so quick and individual that it could hardly be a reason to get together. We were crosses all over the place, but we don't respect the actual and only symbol Jesus specifically asked to be remembered by.
Nowadays, we are obsessed and are feeding the obsession over music and musicality. Somehow, we actually think that singing stuff is worship. That is, when X says to Y "blah blah blah worship" Y thinks music. The clearest definition of worship is in Romans: "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship." I want to get sarcastic about this to drill the point home, but it is too clear and simple - as always, we conviently compress God's principles into one thing we can do once a week.
I say all this to say, enough! It has been a while since a speaker really hit me with a message. It has been ages since a worship song made me tear up. And one more rushed communion is going to eat away at my heart. I want God, and I want His family. I don't even know what I want, because all my elders in the faith seem to have resigned themselves to this pattern, and I don't even know what to look for. I just know that what makes our silly religious gatherings worth something, too me, is the people there, not the formula we try so hard to follow. And some blessed somehow, maybe through those people I will finally get to see God.
CAVEAT: I am me. I am weird. I do not speak for everyone, nor do I presume to. I am expressing my frustration with how the traditions of the church have been handed down to me. I am bothered, in a universal way, because I think our formula's let us off the hook from trying to be real alot of the time, but they aren't inherently evil or anything, they just are where I am. I don't want to be preached to, I want to talk about it. I don't want to sing a song with a repeated chorus to build a warm fuzzy in my heart, I want to cry as I watch a life changed by grace. May that be my worship and the offering of my life.
I say invention, because the formula we currently use is completely foreign to the Bible. Fully 99.9% of non-Catholic or orthdox churches in North America, and probably only slightly lower in the world, follow roughly this pattern:
1. Greeting
2. Sing 3-6 songs
2a. Some sort of congregational exchange of hellos, insulting called Fellowship
3. Communion and/or Offering (generally with meditation, then promptly rushed through and done individually)
4. Sermon (this takes up the most time)
5. Invitation
6. Closer - prayer and/or song
Now, of course there are variations on this here and there, but I feel sure that the VAST majority of churches you could walk into on a Sunday (or Saturday) morning would roughly meet this pattern. Where does this come from? And why do "para-church organizations" like campus ministries feel the need to replicate this model?
In the beginning was communion, and it was good. Well, to be fair, in the beginning were Jews, and they were good. Good Christians, at first, were good Jews (or at least after they believed in Christ they tried to live up to their heritage). On the Sabbath, they would go to synagogues to worship God which included giving, hearing the Word (and I do mean the Word, NOT a preacher's message but the actual text), singing, lighting incense and prayer, and a probably a few things I don't have listed. The next day, the Christians only would get together in homes, to read from the letters of the apostles, to fellowship (that is, to actually become involved in each others lives) and the breaking of bread, or communion. In fact, communion was really the reason that they came together, and gave occasion for the rest. Paul specifically says that he stayed late in a town to share communion with them, not to hear a preacher or sing or any other odd thing. Yet the communion we take is so quick and individual that it could hardly be a reason to get together. We were crosses all over the place, but we don't respect the actual and only symbol Jesus specifically asked to be remembered by.
Nowadays, we are obsessed and are feeding the obsession over music and musicality. Somehow, we actually think that singing stuff is worship. That is, when X says to Y "blah blah blah worship" Y thinks music. The clearest definition of worship is in Romans: "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship." I want to get sarcastic about this to drill the point home, but it is too clear and simple - as always, we conviently compress God's principles into one thing we can do once a week.
I say all this to say, enough! It has been a while since a speaker really hit me with a message. It has been ages since a worship song made me tear up. And one more rushed communion is going to eat away at my heart. I want God, and I want His family. I don't even know what I want, because all my elders in the faith seem to have resigned themselves to this pattern, and I don't even know what to look for. I just know that what makes our silly religious gatherings worth something, too me, is the people there, not the formula we try so hard to follow. And some blessed somehow, maybe through those people I will finally get to see God.
CAVEAT: I am me. I am weird. I do not speak for everyone, nor do I presume to. I am expressing my frustration with how the traditions of the church have been handed down to me. I am bothered, in a universal way, because I think our formula's let us off the hook from trying to be real alot of the time, but they aren't inherently evil or anything, they just are where I am. I don't want to be preached to, I want to talk about it. I don't want to sing a song with a repeated chorus to build a warm fuzzy in my heart, I want to cry as I watch a life changed by grace. May that be my worship and the offering of my life.
posted by Danny | 1:57 PM
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